Fishy
tits McGee (๑˃̵ᴗ˂̵)
I mean, seriously guys, it was only my love of pokemon that brought me to Smogon in the first place… and I never imagined I would get so into competitive battling that I would want to travel across the country for a chance to win any sort of champion title! :happybrain:
My first live tournament ever was Nationals in 2010, and I was so stoked. My team was Breloom, Lopunny, Hitmontop, and Giratina, but unfortunately I didn't get further than round two. I was defeated by none other than the reigning but fabulous overlord SYNRE, and it was from that moment on that I had my first taste of a certain kind of pokemon blood lust. Next year I vowed to defeat Scott should we meet again, but to also get past round 2. Unfortunately, I only had the chance to do the latter! Which was good enough. For now. Which was then.
I attended Seattle and Nationals in 2011, sporting my popular Scarf Jellicent/Fake Tears Whimsicott combo that caught lots of people by surprise, and garnered me some quick wins. However, I lost in rounds 3 at both events. Amoongus got the better of me in Seattle, and I was powerless toward the end of my battle in Indy against a Scrafty/Bisharp combo. Unfortunately, those were my three biggest weaknesses. I was upset about Seattle, but not so much about Nationals. Between those two events and the time since Nationals 2010, I had a lot more time to get more comfortable with the VGC metagame and really figure out the importance of synergy in my teams. Each and every partner has to be able to work with every other partner, regardless of the situation. If you're only confident with certain pairs out of your six members, success will be harder to come by!
And with that, I present the team that stably and happily brought me to victory. I had basically been building this team since the day after Nats 2011, and while I'm sure I ended up with 6 different pokemon than I started with, a disgusting amount of time on PO and relentless testing brought me to this current gem of a team. God, I love this team.
If it wasn't already clear, I brought the Frank. Over, and over, and over.
I'll keep the EVs to myself, but each pokemon had a main function, as well as subtle dualities with every other member of the team!
BRING THE FRANK(and the rest of the squad):
Lundy@Focus Sash
Flash Fire
-Protect
-Shadow Ball
-Overheat
-Trick Room
Lundy was my one and only trick roomer. Typically, it's much smarter to have at least one other trick room user on the team should you lose the main one, or need to reset trick room after it ends, but that wasn't really my style. One of my favorite things about doubles is how quickly the battles can start and finish, so I wanted to build a team that could basically destroy everything before trick room ended. I love Overheat because of the magnificent POWER - typically I could read whether or not I could set trick room up or react to being taunted - Overheat takes out most if not all common taunters (sans Gyarados and Tyranitar) in one hit, and most importantly that pesky fucking amoongus. Amoongus was still one of my biggest weaknesses, and I knew that regardless of whether or not trick room was up, all Amoongus had to die as quickly as possible. Priority numero uno.
Masuka@Flame Orb
Guts
-Fake Out
-Close Combat
-Rock Slide
-Bullet Punch
For the loooongest time I was using Scrafty, and not with Fake Out. In SPL I was using a Shed Skin bulk up scrafty, and I didn't bring it that much. I loved Scrafty because of the bulk, but I found that I wasn't bringing it very often because of the lack of power, at least before I could get some bulk ups in. I also found that I wasn't getting trick room up as often as I liked without fake out, and decided that I needed a change. After using Scrafty for months, I was surprised at how easily I transitioned from him to the all-mighty god that is HARIYAMA. This dude hits like a truck. Like, a 30-million wheeler. With unlimited gas and throttle. And TWO pairs of fuzzy dice. His function is pretty self-explanatory - search and destroy. It was actually a last minute decision to use Bullet Punch - the exceedingly lovely Cassie bred me this Hariyama with Bullet Punch without my request for the move - I had originally planned on using CC/RS/FO/Protect. But, I do love my priority moves, so I decided to use Hariyama in the Spring Wifi Tournament with Bullet Punch and see how it fared. I can't count the number of times it saved my ass. This was definitely one of those situations where testing something against "real" competition (and not just the same PO recycled nonsense) was very eye-opening. Also, Hariyama is wasting its time if its protecting itself - by already taking damage from Flame Orb and any possible weather occurring, he is better off risking himself always attacking than wasting trick room time and HP protecting. A relentless Hariyama is a scary mofo. OHKOs have never been more fun. I used Rock Slide mostly as a filler, but it's his best filler. I also had no other rock moves/hardly any other spread moves, so I thought Rock Slide would be a nice touch for all those last-ditch moments to get some damage on everyone on the other side of the field. You did not disappoint, Masuka. <3
BRISSEY@Ice Gem
Snow Warning
-Protect
-Blizzard
-Wood Hammer
-Ice Shard
So even without my EV spread here, you'd have to guess that my Aboma was mixed. You are correct! I was maxed out in both attack and special attack, with my leftovers in HP. Keeping Aboma alive for a while wasn't really a priority - his function was to murder his enemies before they him. I mainly made the split heavier physically to KO or nearly KO things like Tyranitar, Politoed, Ludicolo, etc. Stuff I couldn't hit as hard with Giga Drain, especially when I had no HP EVs invested to care about gaining health back. Ice Gem fit perfectly here because I could be more physical with WH when circumstances called for it, but also do some serious damage with stabbed Blizzard boosted with a gem. Monstrous. Ice Gem was dually perfect for Ice Shard, and taking care of some pesky dragons if I were out of Trick Room. I felt like Ice Gem Ice Shard caught a lot of people on PO by surprise, which was exactly the point, but it didn't really save me any wins at Colorado - I used Aboma twice out of my seven matches. The two times I used him were against a sand team and one other battle I can't remember as well - I just remember using him as bait against a BPing Scizor so that I could damage the rest of his team and eventually get the win with a bit of hail help. Hail is seriously the best. Takes away TTAR's special defense, and neuters rain so that Chandelure can still murder with Overheat. Very happy that I had Abomasnow whenever I needed him, he was perfect in both battles that I decided to bring him along.
Dexter@Steel Gem
Clear Body
-Protect
-Meteor Mash
-Zen Headbutt
-Bullet Punch
For a little while, I regretted not requesting that my Metagross be bred with Iron Head instead of Meteor Mash. Only for a little while, though. For me, slight percentages to miss are more than ample trades for more power. You just need that one turn for things to go exactly as you plan. I was surprised myself to learn that Metagross can get pretty fucking slow. I suppose it's not a huge surprise being a steel type and all, but having a slow-as-possible metagross against your average slow mons under trick room is very, very handy. I actually started using Steel Gem by suggestion from GIANT ENEMY CRAB. Steel has fantastic neutral coverage, and if something doesn't resist steel, it is most likely going to be substantially hurt by meteor mash. Add a gem, and it will more often than not be substantially dead. Much like Ice Gem with Ice Shard, Steel Gem with Bullet Punch works wonders in out-of-trick room situations, and I never regretted not having a different item. One of the reasons Metagross is an intimidating mon is because of its resistances! For a while I had no idea what my last pokemon was going to be, and when I decided to use Metagross (at first, to my displeasure) I was wholly surprised at how well he fit. What the rest of my team couldn't resist, he did with ease, and had more than enough power to add onto the smackdown. He's a very neat monster.
Doakes@Life Orb
Sheer Force
-Protect
-Earth Power
-Sludge Bomb
-Surf
So, if you haven't figured it out by now, most of my team was running a nickname theme from one of my favorite TV series: DEXTER. Who better to be dubbed as Doakes than angry and mean as fuck looking Nai-doh-king? I mean, Nih-doh-king. :evan: So I guess I have to spoil it for a moment to better explain Nidoking's role, but my last pokemon is Gastrodon. OKAY ANYWAY. Nidoking was a pokemon I wasn't entirely sure about for a while, mainly because the slowest he can get is 81. That's tied with a normal neutral speed nature Tyranitar without any speed EVs. Oh well! Nidoking was like the sellsword of my team with a personal vendetta against one pokemon - Ludicolo. Ludicolo is Gastrodon's biggest bane, so I had to figure out a pokemon that could give surf support as well as destroy Ludicolo before it could touch sweet Gastrodon. Nidoking fit perfectly. Otherwise, with Sheer Force, Life Orb, and two stab moves that got the sheer force boost, he was a force to be reckoned with. The only sad part about Nidoking is that I didn't use him once out of my seven matches :(. Still, he was a crucial element of the team that made me confident, and I can only say that my not needing him for either surf support or general ass-kicking meant that I was assured to win with the rest of my team.
~FRANK~@Rindo Berry
Storm Drain
-Stockpile
-Recover
-Muddy Water
-Earth Power
Hi. This is Frank. Do you know why I named myself "BRING THE FRANK" on PO? Well, I named myself that because I thought of "BRING THE FUNK" but I didn't want to bring the funk and decided to bring Frank instead, whoever that was. It eventually turned out to be Gastrodon, and I did indeed bring my beloved FRANK to every single match. Gastrodon was unremarkable until Gen 5, when its not as unremarkable ability "Storm Drain" (compared to Sticky Hold) was boosted to not only redirect water attacks to itself, but also raise its special attack. All I saw in my head was Gastrodon stealing one of the most prevalent-type attacks and boosting himself specially, while also boosting both of his defenses. And recovering HP.
:naughty:
Once I put Gastrodon on my team and devised his move set (a suggestion from the pokemon master Fish :doom:), everyone else was based around his success. Most importantly, I had to make sure that I had whatever pokemon I needed to get rid of his biggest threats……and only type weakness. Did I mention he only has one weakness? Can everyone start appreciating Gastrodon a fuckton more yet? Don't worry, I'll wait. So, Nidoking was added to take care of the scary Ludicolo. He would always be slower than him under trick room, quadruply so in rain. But, that left two major pokemon that he could never be slower than under trick room, and couldn't even hit super-effectively - Amoongus and Ferrothorn. Whenever those two pokemon were about, I couldn't set up trick room mindlessly. I had to play around getting rid of those two and then set up trick room, or set up trick room and bring pokemon that could avoid being spore'd (Hariyama) or react to their attacks under trick room and hit them back ten fold (Hariyama/Abomasnow/Metagross for resistance!) Thankfully, I only faced one Amoongus in Colorado, and was able to overheat it to hell and back while my opponent set up trick room for me. Talk about two birds, I was very happy.
Back to praising FRANK: Gastrodon is one of my favorite pokemon now. One of the best things about it is its ability to still function rather comfortably after trick room ends - as long as I had at least two stockpiles and maybe one storm drain boost (or none, I just had to be able to recover health and damage them at a more efficient rate than they could damage me) the only things that could stop me were critical hits. And as countless as frustrating as they were on PO, I dealt with none at Colorado, and for that I was very happy. I didn't do too much stockpiling though, and mostly Gastrodon just annoyed everyone who wanted to use water attacks. He's also a very slow pokemon, and was my MVP in my final match vs. another trick room player that was 6-0 like myself. FRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANK I LOVE YOU SO MUCH BABY.
It really is difficult to remember the matches you won vs. the matches you lost - matches you win harbor only one important detail - victory. Matches lost ingrain all the mistakes that forfeited a win into your brain - thankfully, I suffered no hind sight regrets and stayed true to the team I had been editing and perfecting for months and months and months - I went to Colorado telling myself that I was going to be victorious, and while I was in some sort of shock when I beat my opponent with a collective 25HP left on my side, I wasn't that surprised to find that my hard work had finally paid off.
My first live tournament ever was Nationals in 2010, and I was so stoked. My team was Breloom, Lopunny, Hitmontop, and Giratina, but unfortunately I didn't get further than round two. I was defeated by none other than the reigning but fabulous overlord SYNRE, and it was from that moment on that I had my first taste of a certain kind of pokemon blood lust. Next year I vowed to defeat Scott should we meet again, but to also get past round 2. Unfortunately, I only had the chance to do the latter! Which was good enough. For now. Which was then.
I attended Seattle and Nationals in 2011, sporting my popular Scarf Jellicent/Fake Tears Whimsicott combo that caught lots of people by surprise, and garnered me some quick wins. However, I lost in rounds 3 at both events. Amoongus got the better of me in Seattle, and I was powerless toward the end of my battle in Indy against a Scrafty/Bisharp combo. Unfortunately, those were my three biggest weaknesses. I was upset about Seattle, but not so much about Nationals. Between those two events and the time since Nationals 2010, I had a lot more time to get more comfortable with the VGC metagame and really figure out the importance of synergy in my teams. Each and every partner has to be able to work with every other partner, regardless of the situation. If you're only confident with certain pairs out of your six members, success will be harder to come by!
And with that, I present the team that stably and happily brought me to victory. I had basically been building this team since the day after Nats 2011, and while I'm sure I ended up with 6 different pokemon than I started with, a disgusting amount of time on PO and relentless testing brought me to this current gem of a team. God, I love this team.
If it wasn't already clear, I brought the Frank. Over, and over, and over.
I'll keep the EVs to myself, but each pokemon had a main function, as well as subtle dualities with every other member of the team!
BRING THE FRANK(and the rest of the squad):
Lundy@Focus Sash
Flash Fire
-Protect
-Shadow Ball
-Overheat
-Trick Room
Lundy was my one and only trick roomer. Typically, it's much smarter to have at least one other trick room user on the team should you lose the main one, or need to reset trick room after it ends, but that wasn't really my style. One of my favorite things about doubles is how quickly the battles can start and finish, so I wanted to build a team that could basically destroy everything before trick room ended. I love Overheat because of the magnificent POWER - typically I could read whether or not I could set trick room up or react to being taunted - Overheat takes out most if not all common taunters (sans Gyarados and Tyranitar) in one hit, and most importantly that pesky fucking amoongus. Amoongus was still one of my biggest weaknesses, and I knew that regardless of whether or not trick room was up, all Amoongus had to die as quickly as possible. Priority numero uno.
Masuka@Flame Orb
Guts
-Fake Out
-Close Combat
-Rock Slide
-Bullet Punch
For the loooongest time I was using Scrafty, and not with Fake Out. In SPL I was using a Shed Skin bulk up scrafty, and I didn't bring it that much. I loved Scrafty because of the bulk, but I found that I wasn't bringing it very often because of the lack of power, at least before I could get some bulk ups in. I also found that I wasn't getting trick room up as often as I liked without fake out, and decided that I needed a change. After using Scrafty for months, I was surprised at how easily I transitioned from him to the all-mighty god that is HARIYAMA. This dude hits like a truck. Like, a 30-million wheeler. With unlimited gas and throttle. And TWO pairs of fuzzy dice. His function is pretty self-explanatory - search and destroy. It was actually a last minute decision to use Bullet Punch - the exceedingly lovely Cassie bred me this Hariyama with Bullet Punch without my request for the move - I had originally planned on using CC/RS/FO/Protect. But, I do love my priority moves, so I decided to use Hariyama in the Spring Wifi Tournament with Bullet Punch and see how it fared. I can't count the number of times it saved my ass. This was definitely one of those situations where testing something against "real" competition (and not just the same PO recycled nonsense) was very eye-opening. Also, Hariyama is wasting its time if its protecting itself - by already taking damage from Flame Orb and any possible weather occurring, he is better off risking himself always attacking than wasting trick room time and HP protecting. A relentless Hariyama is a scary mofo. OHKOs have never been more fun. I used Rock Slide mostly as a filler, but it's his best filler. I also had no other rock moves/hardly any other spread moves, so I thought Rock Slide would be a nice touch for all those last-ditch moments to get some damage on everyone on the other side of the field. You did not disappoint, Masuka. <3
BRISSEY@Ice Gem
Snow Warning
-Protect
-Blizzard
-Wood Hammer
-Ice Shard
So even without my EV spread here, you'd have to guess that my Aboma was mixed. You are correct! I was maxed out in both attack and special attack, with my leftovers in HP. Keeping Aboma alive for a while wasn't really a priority - his function was to murder his enemies before they him. I mainly made the split heavier physically to KO or nearly KO things like Tyranitar, Politoed, Ludicolo, etc. Stuff I couldn't hit as hard with Giga Drain, especially when I had no HP EVs invested to care about gaining health back. Ice Gem fit perfectly here because I could be more physical with WH when circumstances called for it, but also do some serious damage with stabbed Blizzard boosted with a gem. Monstrous. Ice Gem was dually perfect for Ice Shard, and taking care of some pesky dragons if I were out of Trick Room. I felt like Ice Gem Ice Shard caught a lot of people on PO by surprise, which was exactly the point, but it didn't really save me any wins at Colorado - I used Aboma twice out of my seven matches. The two times I used him were against a sand team and one other battle I can't remember as well - I just remember using him as bait against a BPing Scizor so that I could damage the rest of his team and eventually get the win with a bit of hail help. Hail is seriously the best. Takes away TTAR's special defense, and neuters rain so that Chandelure can still murder with Overheat. Very happy that I had Abomasnow whenever I needed him, he was perfect in both battles that I decided to bring him along.
Dexter@Steel Gem
Clear Body
-Protect
-Meteor Mash
-Zen Headbutt
-Bullet Punch
For a little while, I regretted not requesting that my Metagross be bred with Iron Head instead of Meteor Mash. Only for a little while, though. For me, slight percentages to miss are more than ample trades for more power. You just need that one turn for things to go exactly as you plan. I was surprised myself to learn that Metagross can get pretty fucking slow. I suppose it's not a huge surprise being a steel type and all, but having a slow-as-possible metagross against your average slow mons under trick room is very, very handy. I actually started using Steel Gem by suggestion from GIANT ENEMY CRAB. Steel has fantastic neutral coverage, and if something doesn't resist steel, it is most likely going to be substantially hurt by meteor mash. Add a gem, and it will more often than not be substantially dead. Much like Ice Gem with Ice Shard, Steel Gem with Bullet Punch works wonders in out-of-trick room situations, and I never regretted not having a different item. One of the reasons Metagross is an intimidating mon is because of its resistances! For a while I had no idea what my last pokemon was going to be, and when I decided to use Metagross (at first, to my displeasure) I was wholly surprised at how well he fit. What the rest of my team couldn't resist, he did with ease, and had more than enough power to add onto the smackdown. He's a very neat monster.
Doakes@Life Orb
Sheer Force
-Protect
-Earth Power
-Sludge Bomb
-Surf
So, if you haven't figured it out by now, most of my team was running a nickname theme from one of my favorite TV series: DEXTER. Who better to be dubbed as Doakes than angry and mean as fuck looking Nai-doh-king? I mean, Nih-doh-king. :evan: So I guess I have to spoil it for a moment to better explain Nidoking's role, but my last pokemon is Gastrodon. OKAY ANYWAY. Nidoking was a pokemon I wasn't entirely sure about for a while, mainly because the slowest he can get is 81. That's tied with a normal neutral speed nature Tyranitar without any speed EVs. Oh well! Nidoking was like the sellsword of my team with a personal vendetta against one pokemon - Ludicolo. Ludicolo is Gastrodon's biggest bane, so I had to figure out a pokemon that could give surf support as well as destroy Ludicolo before it could touch sweet Gastrodon. Nidoking fit perfectly. Otherwise, with Sheer Force, Life Orb, and two stab moves that got the sheer force boost, he was a force to be reckoned with. The only sad part about Nidoking is that I didn't use him once out of my seven matches :(. Still, he was a crucial element of the team that made me confident, and I can only say that my not needing him for either surf support or general ass-kicking meant that I was assured to win with the rest of my team.
Storm Drain
-Stockpile
-Recover
-Muddy Water
-Earth Power
Hi. This is Frank. Do you know why I named myself "BRING THE FRANK" on PO? Well, I named myself that because I thought of "BRING THE FUNK" but I didn't want to bring the funk and decided to bring Frank instead, whoever that was. It eventually turned out to be Gastrodon, and I did indeed bring my beloved FRANK to every single match. Gastrodon was unremarkable until Gen 5, when its not as unremarkable ability "Storm Drain" (compared to Sticky Hold) was boosted to not only redirect water attacks to itself, but also raise its special attack. All I saw in my head was Gastrodon stealing one of the most prevalent-type attacks and boosting himself specially, while also boosting both of his defenses. And recovering HP.
:naughty:
Once I put Gastrodon on my team and devised his move set (a suggestion from the pokemon master Fish :doom:), everyone else was based around his success. Most importantly, I had to make sure that I had whatever pokemon I needed to get rid of his biggest threats……and only type weakness. Did I mention he only has one weakness? Can everyone start appreciating Gastrodon a fuckton more yet? Don't worry, I'll wait. So, Nidoking was added to take care of the scary Ludicolo. He would always be slower than him under trick room, quadruply so in rain. But, that left two major pokemon that he could never be slower than under trick room, and couldn't even hit super-effectively - Amoongus and Ferrothorn. Whenever those two pokemon were about, I couldn't set up trick room mindlessly. I had to play around getting rid of those two and then set up trick room, or set up trick room and bring pokemon that could avoid being spore'd (Hariyama) or react to their attacks under trick room and hit them back ten fold (Hariyama/Abomasnow/Metagross for resistance!) Thankfully, I only faced one Amoongus in Colorado, and was able to overheat it to hell and back while my opponent set up trick room for me. Talk about two birds, I was very happy.
Back to praising FRANK: Gastrodon is one of my favorite pokemon now. One of the best things about it is its ability to still function rather comfortably after trick room ends - as long as I had at least two stockpiles and maybe one storm drain boost (or none, I just had to be able to recover health and damage them at a more efficient rate than they could damage me) the only things that could stop me were critical hits. And as countless as frustrating as they were on PO, I dealt with none at Colorado, and for that I was very happy. I didn't do too much stockpiling though, and mostly Gastrodon just annoyed everyone who wanted to use water attacks. He's also a very slow pokemon, and was my MVP in my final match vs. another trick room player that was 6-0 like myself. FRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANK I LOVE YOU SO MUCH BABY.
It really is difficult to remember the matches you won vs. the matches you lost - matches you win harbor only one important detail - victory. Matches lost ingrain all the mistakes that forfeited a win into your brain - thankfully, I suffered no hind sight regrets and stayed true to the team I had been editing and perfecting for months and months and months - I went to Colorado telling myself that I was going to be victorious, and while I was in some sort of shock when I beat my opponent with a collective 25HP left on my side, I wasn't that surprised to find that my hard work had finally paid off.
